


Seducing Dragons for Fun and Profit

by orphan_account



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Background Relationships, F/F, F/M, Flirting With Your Crush Through Fictional Fantasy Characters: A Love Story, Gen, Pre-Relationship, The Kids Play D&D, Until Dawn Summer Gift Exchange 2018, minor fantasy violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 19:00:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15201341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Ashley has a little realization while playing the dorkiest game ever invented.





	Seducing Dragons for Fun and Profit

**Author's Note:**

> This work has not been beta read. All mistakes are mine.

 

_The cavern is massive, as large and as imposing as the inside of a cathedral, and full to the brim with treasures from every kingdom, every age in history. In the center, seated atop a throne of burning bone, she waits for them, fangs bared in a grim, sarcastic welcome. The four intrepid heroes realize in that moment that they had only been allowed to get as far into The Scarlet Queen’s lair because she had allowed it, had been sufficiently amused by their antics until now._

_“Welcome, brave heroes,” Aankoura the ancient dragon says after a short, rumbling chuckle. “I’m impressed that you have managed to survive this long.”_

_The motley crew of adventurers look at each other. Rowan, the hardened human fighter, touches a scar on her neck and takes in a sharp, galvanizing breath. Her girlfriend Devana, the half-orc cleric, gives her shoulder a reassuring squeeze and utters a quick prayer to Artemis. Lucius, the mysterious elven sorcerer, watches the couple impassively before returning his attention to the dragon before them. At his feet, Zia, the little halfling rogue, watches with trepidation as the elf cries out without warning, sending a volley of vicious corrosive spells at the dragon…_

_…all of which miss spectacularly. One of them even manages, somehow, to arc all the way around the dragon, come back around, and hit Lucius in the ass._

“You’re kidding me,” Sam says between fits of laughter. “Three natural ones _in a row?”_

“Don’t rub it in,” Josh groans, banging his head against the table. “There goes my dignity, melting away just like Lucius’s ass.”

“Well, that’s a lovely visual,” Beth deadpans.

It’s a Friday night in Chris’s basement, which means, just like always, that the five of them, Ashley, Chris, Josh, Sam and Beth, are sitting around a box of hot vegan (read: tasteless) pizza and playing the nerdiest game imaginable. Ash isn’t sure what the other members of their little group would say about them if they knew this is what the five of them got up to on Friday nights while other kids their age were out watching movies or getting drunk or sleeping around in the backs of cars. She can’t imagine they’d be terribly surprised.

Chris sits in the DM’s chair, laughing maybe a little more than he should at Josh’s humiliation, but Ashley figures it’s payback for the time Josh supposedly forgot to invite any of the rest of their friends to a movie and then mysteriously couldn’t make it himself, leaving just Chris and Ashley sitting together in a darkened theater, grateful for the otherwise forgettable action movie filling the uncomfortable silence.

It’s not that Ashley doesn’t like spending time with Chris. It’s just in places like that, in movie theaters or fancy restaurants or secluded gardens, the kind of place you’d take someone you liked in order to be alone with them, that her throat freezes up and her heart pounds a mile a minute.

When Ashley and Chris are alone, she feels like there’s a rabbit inside her chest trying to get out. Whenever she tries to talk to Chris, the words come out wrong. Her mom always says to be herself when she’s trying to impress people, but whenever she tries to be herself around Chris, she feels so small that an ant could knock her over.

If she were someone else, someone bolder, maybe she’d have a chance with Chris, but—

“Ouch, that is forty-nine points of burn damage hitting all of you in a cone,” Chris is saying. He looks up when he sees Ashley staring off at nothing. “Ash, you still with us?”

“Uh, I—yeah. Sorry, how much?”

“Forty-nine points of burn damage.”

“Oh. Shit.”

“Yeah.” Chris, for his part, looks genuinely apologetic. Ashley’s character has a knack for getting badly hurt pretty much every fight, but unlike when Chris gets to mess with Josh’s character, he doesn’t seem to relish hurting Ashley’s.

That doesn’t change the fact that her character is currently on fire, but at least Ash knows that there’s no malice behind the act.

Chris looks up at Sam.

“Alright, Sammy, it’s Devana’s turn now.”

Sam frowns and looks at the board.

“Hmm. I’m gonna go ahead and heal Rowan—”

“You always gotta go and save your girlfriend,” Josh teases. “Meanwhile, my guy is currently burning and without an ass and also probably about to die. I’m detecting a bit of a bias here.”

Sam sticks out her tongue at him. Beth, smirking, gives her brother the finger.

They carry on like that for a while, the fight growing more and more dire with each new stroke of bad luck. Eventually they take a break from the action after Josh’s character dies (again) and Sam’s character nearly dies trying to bring him back (again). Chris sits next to Ashley on the couch as they munch on now cold pizza and crack jokes about one of Jess’s less fondly remembered exes.

“Say,” Chris says after about a half a minute of companionable silence. “You don’t think if, like, Em and Mike and people knew that we did this, uh, well, do you think they’d laugh at us?”

“Them? Probably,” Ashley says. No point in sugar coating it.

Chris laughs nervously.

“Heh, you’re probably right. Serves us right for befriending a bunch of unapologetic assholes.”

“They’re good people, though,” Ashley says. “Deep down.”

“Really deep down.”

“Really really _really_ deep down,” Ashley adds, then laughs. “They’d laugh ‘cause they’re dicks like that, but I don’t think they’d actually think less of us for it, you know? They like us because we’re us, not because we pretend to be into all the things they’re into. Otherwise they never would have bothered hanging with us to begin with.”

“I guess,” Chris says. He leans back a bit, the light of the basement reflecting off his glasses. He’s dressed for comfort in jeans and a Ghostbusters tee shirt, and his hair is a frizzy mess, but still he manages, almost effortlessly, to look handsome. Not that he ever seems to notice. “Still, I feel like I have to tone the nerdy shit down around them, you know? Like, I can only be, like, eighty percent myself. Does that make any sense?”

“That…that actually makes a lot of sense,” Ashley says, trying not to laugh from the sheer relief of knowing she’s not alone in this. “Like, people are always like ‘be yourself,’ but that’s such a platitude, you know? No one’s ever completely themselves. We pretend for everybody. We’re all trying to be just the right version of ourselves in any moment. Even with friends.” She coughs and clears her throat, looking away from Chris. Sometimes he’s like the sun, bright and lovely and impossible to look at directly. “I mean, look at the game we’re playing. It’s all about pretending to be people who are better and cooler than us so we can fantasize about being those awesome people.” She pauses again. “Well. I mean. Except Josh’s character, who kinda sucks, but that’s mostly just bad luck on his part anyway.”

“Someone up there doesn’t like him,” Chris remarks, gesturing idly towards the distant sky, far above them. Ashley turns to see him looking at her carefully, like he’s checking her for cracks. It’s a bit uncomfortable, but at the same time it makes her feel strangely safe. “Is that so bad, though? I mean, this game lets you try things you might not be brave enough to try as you yet, and you’re safe to watch the consequences play out, because it’s not real. And just because you’re not an awesome treasure-hunting rogue now doesn’t mean you couldn’t be, you know?”

“I mean—”

“Yeah, yeah, bad metaphor, I know. Point still stands. You’re not being yourself when you play this game, that’s the point, but maybe it can help you find parts of yourself that you’re too afraid to look for otherwise.”

Ash blinks. She’d never thought of Chris as being an especially wise person. Smart, sure, maybe the smartest person she knew, but not any wiser than the average teenager. But maybe there’s more to him than even she knows. Chris smiles, wide and genial, and gives her a good-natured clap on the shoulder.

“C’mon, you and your pals have a dragon to kill.”

 

\------------

“Oh man,” Chris says. “Alright, Ash, no pressure, but this is all down to Zia. If she can’t stop the Scarlet Queen this turn, she’s almost definitely gonna turn all of you to ash.” He clears his throat. “Um. No pun intended.”

“Hardy har,” Sam says.

Ashley swallows. Her character is at Death’s door, as are all the others, and the dragon doesn’t have any glaring weaknesses. All of their attacks have done jack shit to stop her thus far, and running away isn’t a viable option. Ashley takes a deep breath and considers her course of action.

And then she gets a really, really stupid idea.

“You know what? Zia’s gonna seduce that dragon.”

“I—what?” Beth splutters. “Now?!”

“Listen, I don’t have any other options”, Ashley says. “So I’m gonna lean in, all seductive like, and whisper, ‘I’m feeling a little chilly. Wanna cozy up next to your fire’.”

Everyone at the table groans.

“That’s a Mike-level bad pick-up line,” Beth says.

Chris shakes his head, but he’s smiling.

“You know what? Roll charisma. I genuinely want to see if you can seduce this dragon.”

Ashley rolls, holding her breath as the die falls.

She breathes out.

“Natural. Freaking. Twenty.”

Sam and Josh cheer. Beth laughs out loud.

“You’re _kidding me,”_ Chris says. “Seriously?”

“Yep,” Ashley says, and leans in a bit to Chris, giving him an exaggerated wink. “I’m just that good.”

To her surprise, the tips of Chris’s ears go slightly pink. She hopes she’s not blushing herself.

“A-alright,” Chris says, taking a second to regain his composure. “Well. Um. Okay. Enchanted by this tiny, shrimpy little Hobbit-like woman with dirty armor and blood all over her face, the massive dragon stops her assault and gently picks you up, flying you deeper into her lair so you two can get it on in privacy. The rest of your group looks on, utterly bewildered.”

The whole table bursts into renewed laughter.

“Well,” Josh says between fits of laughter, “that’s one way to keep us all from dying.”

“You’re welcome,” Ashley says, grinning at a now scarlet-faced Chris. It makes her a little dizzy, making him blush like that. In any other context she never would have dared, but here, the both of them speaking through fictional characters, it’s almost easy to flirt with Chris, if in weird, sometimes ridiculous ways.

Maybe Chris is right. Maybe if she practices saying the things that scare her through this safe, protective lens, she’ll one day be able to say them as herself.

 

**Author's Note:**

> These nerds, I swear.  
> This fic was written as part of the Until Dawn Summer Gift Exchange, for the lovely theartfuldead on tumblr! I'm pretty inexperienced when it comes to writing Chris/Ashley, but I hope I did these cute dorks justice!  
> Leave a comment if you liked it! Thanks for reading!


End file.
